The Moons of Mirrodin by Will McDermott Read Free Book Online

the floor and wall near the body told Glissa all she needed to know.
    Glissa whipped the sword up in front of her and screamed.
    Almost as one, the levelers turned from their search and advanced on her. More of the gleaming creatures emerged from each spire. From the pincers of one of the beasts hung the gelfruit-lacedtresses of Lyese’s hair. Glissa’s temples pounded, and her ears rang as the blood raced through her body. Tears welled up in her eyes and her hands shook. All her fears and nightmares had finally come true. The levelers had come for her, but she hadn’t been home, and her family had paid for that.
    A battle raged inside Glissa as the levelers advanced upon her. The screams of the little girl could not be quelled, but the adult knew that emotion could be harnessed. She transformed the little girl’s fear and sorrow into a rage that quelled the tears and stilled her shaking hands.
    As the first leveler came near, the elf ran and leaped over the gleaming blades, landing on the creature’s silver back. She plunged the sword down through the side of the red dome above its mouth, then wrenched the hilt down to rip the blade out and shatter the dome completely. Inside, she could see faceted gems on metallic stalks that turned and seemed to look up at her. She swiped at them with her blade.
    The sword sliced through both eye stalks, and the twin gems tumbled down inside the beast. The creature hesitated a moment, then turned as if to follow Glissa. The elf was still standing on top of the leveler, though, and as it turned, it met the twirling blades of another leveler. Metal scraped against metal as the blades cut through each other. One of the blinded leveler’s blades dug firmly into the body of the other creature, severing its pincers and front leg.
    “Die!” screamed Glissa as the blind and mindless leveler chewed its comrade.
    The elf jumped off her mount and landed on the next one’s back. She intended to blind it as well, spurring the huge metal beasts to tear each other apart as they had her parents and sister. Instead, as she landed, the creature twisted its body and reached for her with its pincers. Glissa lost her footing and fell backward. Her foot slid down past the beast’s head, close to the twirling blades. She pulledher feet up and rolled backward onto the floor, landing hard amidst the rubble of the kitchen, her back against the rear wall.
    The levelers turned—all except the blinded one, which had made its way back into a spire room. Glissa pushed on the floor with her hands and legs, inching her way up the wall, but there was nowhere left to go. The levelers advanced on her, one behind the other. Glissa thought about jumping over the front creature’s rotating blades and trying to run across the backs of the killers and escape. The warrior inside her couldn’t bear to retreat in the face of her family’s executioners.
    “This is it,” she said. Her family was gone. Her life was over. All she had left was this moment. “You’ll pay dearly for my family’s deaths before I die!” she growled.
    Glissa held her sword up in front of her. The tip wavered a little. She readied for the attack, then stared at the tip of the sword. It glowed faintly. Soft green tendrils of energy played up and down the length of the blade. It was the same energy she had seen in her flare, and it was building. Now the entire blade was bright green, and the energy was climbing her arm. With a blinding flash, a tendril of energy lashed out from the tip of the sword at the nearest leveler, engulfing it in green fire. Glissa could feel the heat from the intense flame, but the fire died quickly, leaving nothing but slag where the beast had stood.
    The other levelers still advanced, their blades sweeping from side to side as they inched closer. They seemed totally unaware that she had just turned one of their number into a puddle of molten metal. Like hunters who had caught scent of their prey, they would never